Translation of abstract (English)

Statius' Thebaid is one of few Latin epics to survive from antiquity, and it shows its author drawing on the full range of the genre. Taking up elements from nearly all his predecessors, Statius puts the funeral games, which occupied a firm place within epic since early times and was also closely associated with the "Seven against Thebes", at the center of his work. Within these games he fashions a quiet transition from the peaceful departure of the fighters to the beginning of the war, which he develops with an increasing gravitas in the fighting. He thereby imparts special meaning on the seven military commanders, whom he inspects closely in the context of the games and whom he characterizes in most cases for the first time by means of the fighting conditions. This paper first examines the description of every hero in the course of the epic and indicates recurring motifs such as characteristic epithets and formative concepts. Secondly, common characteristics of the heroic descriptions are examined, such as the impact of amor on the heroes, and the consequences in meaning if Statius introduces his heroes with a parenthesis, as well as the hidden clues he gives by the victory prizes about the elimination of the hero in the epic.